Filming in Dallas
On November 22, 1963, Dallas dressmaker Abraham Zapruder stood on a concrete pedestal along Elm Street with his 8 mm Bell & Howell camera and recorded about 26 seconds of color, silent footage of President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade. The film captured the shots that struck the President and the moments that followed as the limousine accelerated toward the triple underpass.
A Frame Withheld
Zapruder had three copies made for government investigators and sold print and publication rights to Life magazine on November 23, 1963. He asked that one image, known as Frame 313, not be shown because of its graphic content. Life published still frames but withheld Frame 313 from public view.
Although unauthorized copies circulated, most Americans did not see the unedited sequence until March 6, 1975, when Geraldo Rivera broadcast the complete film on the ABC program Good Night America.
Reinvestigations and Records
In 1976 the United States Senate created the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, known as the Church Committee, which disclosed CIA contacts with organized crime in plots against Fidel Castro.
The House of Representatives then formed the House Select Committee on Assassinations, active from 1976 to 1979. In 1979 the HSCA reported that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy, relying in part on acoustic evidence from a Dallas police Dictabelt recording that was interpreted as indicating a fourth shot. The Department of Justice asked the National Academy of Sciences to review that analysis.
In 1982 the academy reported that the acoustic evidence did not support a finding of a second gunman, and later studies questioned the motorcycle location that underpinned the Dictabelt claim. Public interest in the film surged again after the 1991 release of Oliver Stone’s JFK, which presented the Zapruder footage to a wide audience.
Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act in 1992, creating the Assassination Records Review Board and mandating the collection and release of assassination related records. Releases continued through the 1990s and into the following decades.
The Umbrella Man
Filmmaker Errol Morris released a six minute New York Times Op Doc in 2011 about a bystander visible in the Zapruder film nicknamed the Umbrella Man. The short features Josiah “Tink” Thompson, author of the 1967 study Six Seconds in Dallas. The bystander, Louie Steven Witt, identified himself and testified before the HSCA in 1978.
He stated that he carried an umbrella on a sunny day as a pointed protest connected to Joseph P. Kennedy’s prewar stance as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and to Neville Chamberlain’s well known umbrella. Morris’s film recounts Witt’s explanation and the record of his appearance, which is preserved in the committee’s files.
Frame 313 remained the most restricted image from the film until its nationwide airing in 1975, after which the Zapruder footage entered public circulation in many formats and became a standard reference in official and media examinations of the assassination.
On November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Abraham Zapruder lifted his 8 mm camera and filmed 26 seconds that captured the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Within those 486 frames lay Frame 313, the image Zapruder begged never to show, too horrific for the public eye…🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/c7J8W8KinS
— Fascinating True Stories (@FascinatingTrue) September 16, 2025